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Commentary on "The Prodigal's New Clothes"
Day 3: Monday, May 30, 2011 - Spreading His Wings
Overview
“Why not choose to avoid the sin and spare yourself all the sorrow and the repentance that (one hopes) will follow?” (Teacher’s Quarterly, Page 116)
Problems
Adventist theology is oozing all over today’s lesson.
Humans can no more avoid sin than they can stop breathing.
Truly lost people are spiritually dead. They act the way they act because they are lost. That’s what lost people do. No amount of repentance and confession can change that. Only the indwelling life of Christ, the Holy Spirit, can change that.
The problem comes when we’re dealing with people who, for all intents and purposes, have convinced us that they are saved. Thankfully, the Bible explains what is really going on. Lost people can put up a good front (see Matthew 7:21-23, 1 John 2:18-19) It is not ours to judge, because we can’t see what God sees. Saved people experience a constant war between the flesh and the Spirit (see Galatians 5). Saved people can do heinous things (see the entire letter of 1 Corinthians).
In both cases, again, the answer is Jesus. For the person who has been faking it, the realization of Who Jesus is and what He has accomplished can strike home as nothing else. Salvation is as available to them as to the worst behaving pagan.
For the saved person caught in sin, realizing that nothing can separate him from the love of God in Christ will help him fix his eyes on Jesus. Only He can strengthen weak hands and shaking knees (see Hebrews 12). This is an inside-out transaction. The Holy Spirit doesn’t leave us when we stray. Rather, the Holy Spirit is right there with us, in us, in the midst of the worst things we can imagine, constantly reminding us who we are (His children) and constantly working to renew our minds with truth.
Perhaps most important, the saved person does not need to beg for forgiveness. Of course, we do it anyway, but the Father just ignores our words and wraps his own robe around us.
What drives the saved person back to sanity is exactly what drove the prodigal son back. “This is not who I am! I wasn’t named ‘Child of God’ just to wallow in the muck. I am my Father’s son, a co-heir with Jesus!” This sense of identity is our God-given right, and it is the Holy Spirit’s most powerful weapon in leading us back to walking by faith.
This is a far different theology than the Adventist assumption that horrible behavior equals loss of salvation and that good behavior equals retention of salvation.
In human terms, behavior means much. This is why both lost and saved people, when convicted of crimes in human courts, suffer equal punishment, reaping what they sow.
In spiritual terms, behavior means absolutely nothing! This is why, spiritually, a saved person never need fear God’s judgment. Jesus suffered everything we deserve. There is nothing left for us. Forgiveness is complete; salvation is eternal.
To repent means to change one’s mind. It does not mean to change one’s behavior. To repent means that if I was heading South, I am now heading North. Yes, behavior follows repentance, but it is behavior focused on the indwelling Christ, not on proving to myself and others that I’m a good guy, a better person, or “safe to save.”
Summary
- The tendency to focus on people and their sins instead of on Jesus and His provision causes Adventist theology to require proper behavior as proof of repentance. This position is fairly common through much of Evangelical Christianity.
- Focusing on behavior, and especially bad behavior and its results, causes us to lose sight of the power of identity. Lost people are lost, regardless of what they do. Saved people are saved, regardless of what they do.
- Truly, there are consequences, humanly, temporally speaking to bad behavior.
- Truly, Jesus already suffered and died for every unspeakable thing any saved person could ever do. Eternally, the consequences have been dealt with once and for all.
- Yes, Jesus died for lost people too, but they cannot realize the forgiveness offered apart from accepting Him as their life.
- This is the real difference between lost people and saved people. Saved people are indwelt by the Holy Spirit; lost people are not.
Copyright 2011 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised May 9, 2011. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.
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